Various systems have been proposed for locating and identifying water mines. One system for detecting mines is the Northrop Grumman Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) developed and built for the U.S. Navy. The ALMDS system is a laser detection and ranging system (LADAR) system that captures information in the form of a set of images. Each image represents a nearly vertical slice through a volume of water of interest.
The ALMDS system includes a pulsed fan beam laser transmitter, four streak tube receivers, and a data processing unit. Each receiver is composed of a streak tube imager, intensifier and camera to capture the images, and data processing equipment to determine if the volume of water contains a mine. Each receiver records reflected light from approximately one fourth of the transmitted fan beam. All of this hardware is contained in a pod that is typically attached to a helicopter.
This invention seeks to provide an improved data processing algorithm for detecting objects in the ladar images of a volume of water.